Her Last Word
Page 66

“No, he left a half hour ago. He should be arriving there now.”
“Oh, right. I think I see him. Thank you.”
Her next call was to his office, wondering if she’d get anyone to answer on Saturday. As the phone rang, she sat straighter when she heard a woman’s crisp voice say, “Hawthorn, Blackstone, and Myers.”
“I’m calling for Derek Blackstone. I’m a neighbor of his.” She’d thought up a dozen scenarios to get him on the phone, but in the end opted to keep it simple. “I think his house is on fire.”
A leaden silence filled the next few seconds before the woman said, “He’s out of the office today.”
“He is? I just saw him, and he said he was going to the office.”
“Not today.”
“Oh, wow. I called the fire department.” If he were in the office, this would get him to the phone. “Are you sure he’s not there?”
Phones rang in the background. “Look, I can take your name and number and track him down.”
She decided to go aggressive. “What’s your name?”
“I’m sorry?”
“What is your name? And do you have a supervisor?”
“Who is this?” the woman insisted.
She gripped the phone. This ruse wasn’t going to work. “Tell him Gina Mason called. He can call me back at this number.”
She dialed Adler’s number. It rang twice and went to voicemail. A now-familiar graveled tone hummed over her nerves. “Adler, this is Kaitlin. I’m calling about Derek Blackstone. I think his link to this case goes way deeper than attorney-client relationship.”
Adler’s phone buzzed in his pocket, but he let it go to voicemail. He was standing in the medical examiner’s autopsy suite with Quinn and Dr. McGowan. On the two stainless-steel tables were separate sets of bones. Neither set had yet been arranged in anatomical order.
Dr. McGowan clicked on an overhead light. Gingerly she lifted the first skull. “We’ve already taken X-rays and cross-referenced dental records. This is Gina Mason. She’s finally come home.”
He studied the skull cradled in the doctor’s hands. Images of the young woman’s smiling face stoked his anger. This kid had not deserved such a violent fate. “And the other one?”
Dr. McGowan had set the first skull down and picked up the second. “Female. Under the age of twenty, I think.” She turned the skull to the side and traced her finger down a fracture. “Someone hit her hard on the back of her head. The blow was enough to knock her out and maybe kill her. I also noticed that her pelvic bone is broken, suggesting there was more trauma. I can’t tell you if that occurred ante- or postmortem. The pelvis is very vascular, and if she were alive, this would have caused tremendous bleeding and pain.”
He hoped to hell it was postmortem. “Can you determine the cause of death?”
She gently set the skull down and lifted one of the victim’s ribs. “There are distinct markings here.” She ran her finger along an angled indention. “It was caused by a large knife. If you look carefully you’ll see the edges are slightly serrated. Maybe it was a hunting knife. If you found the knife I’m confident I could match it.”
“How long has she been dead?” Adler asked.
“I’d say a couple of years longer than Miss Mason.”
“And Miss Mason was also stabbed?” Quinn asked.
“Yes. There are knife marks on at least two of her left ribs. If you look closely at the marks, you’ll notice the blade is serrated and matches the other rib we just examined.”
Quinn shook her head with contempt. “Two women murdered within a couple of years. Hayward goes to prison on drug and burglary charges, and within four weeks of being out, he knifes a woman to death.”
“The knife recovered from the convenience store murder was a hunting knife,” Adler said. “That victim was stabbed in the ribs.”
“You just took the words right out of my mouth,” Dr. McGowan said. “I pulled the complete set of records from that autopsy. The knife that killed that victim was also serrated.”
“Hayward said he went up to the barn after he was released from prison,” Adler said. “He finds the murder weapon he stashed fourteen years ago, thinks enough time has gone by, and the stupid shit pockets it.”
“He saved the knife as some kind of trophy?”
“That’s my guess,” Adler said.
“Do you really think Hayward would be so stupid to take us to Gina’s body knowing Jane Doe is one hundred yards away?” Quinn asked.
“I think he’s that arrogant and also that desperate. Gina was his one shot to save himself.”
“So he assumes our attention would be exclusively on unearthing Gina’s body and bets we won’t look anywhere else,” Quinn said incredulously.
“Have the GPR technicians found any other bodies near these two?” Dr. McGowan asked.
“No. Not yet,” Adler said.
“You think Blackstone knew about the second body?” Quinn asked.
“I don’t know,” Adler said.
Quinn’s grin was sly. “The immunity deal with Hayward covers the Gina Mason and convenience store murders only, correct?”
He smiled. “Correct. It does not cover Jane Doe.”
“So if we can tie Hayward to Jane Doe’s murder, we can charge him with murder.”
“That’s the goal.”
They spent several more minutes discussing the cases before Adler could step away and check his voicemail. He played back Kaitlin’s message.
He didn’t like the idea of her chasing Blackstone. If Blackstone had been covering for Hayward all these years, he had a lot to lose. And that made him very dangerous.
Adler dialed Logan’s number. He answered on the second ring, his voice thick and heavy with sleep.
“Did I wake you up, Logan?”
“Up until four a.m.”
“I didn’t sleep all night.”
“Aren’t you a badass?” Logan coughed. “What do you need other than to hear my manly voice?”
The sarcasm was a good sign. Soon Logan would be back to his old smartass self. “Randy Hayward dropped out of college during his sophomore year. We all assumed he left because of the drugs. But I looked up his school record. He was making the dean’s list right up until he left, so if he was using, it wasn’t interfering with his schoolwork.”
He told Logan about the second set of remains. “Check to see if any girl went missing about that time in that area.”
“Will do.”
Adler and Quinn arrived at the city jail. They didn’t have to wait long before Hayward arrived cuffed and wearing a shit-eating grin.
Hayward’s chest puffed with the bravado of a card player holding a royal flush. He sat and sniffed. “You don’t look like you slept so well, Detective.”
Adler shook his head. “It was a long night.”
“I slept like a baby,” Hayward said and winked at Quinn.
Adler allowed Hayward to bask in the glow of immunity. “The medical examiner identified the remains. They belong to Gina.”
“I told you. I don’t lie when it comes to important shit like that.”
“Your deal with Ricker is ironclad,” Adler said. “Blackstone made sure of it.”
“Gotta love that buddy of mine.”